Franco Farinelli
The Map, the Space, the Globe. Between Modernity and Metamodernity
Modernity implies an ontological divide between the subject and the object because modernity implies a linear measurable interval (i.e. a distance) between them, and an homologous way to explain the relationships between things, a sort of linear interval between the cause and the effect. In a word, modernity means space, so that in modern times the face of the Earth became the copy of a map. In this sense Heidegger was right in saying that modernity is the age of the image of the world, and in this sense modern world is a truly New World. But in the summer of 1969 a new New World was born, the world of the Net in which space is almost completely absent, and for which, consequently, no maps are possible. How it will be possible to explore it?
Franco Farinelli, geb. 1948, ist Präsident der Associazione dei Geografi Italiani und unterrichtet am Institut für Geographie der Universität Bologna. Zahlreiche Gastaufenthalte an europäischen und amerikanischen Universitäten. Er ist im Beirat bzw. Herausgebergremium zahlreicher Fachzeitschriften. Zuletzt erschienen: La crisi della ragione cartografica. Introduzione alla geografia della globalità (2009) und L’invenzione della Terra (2007).
In cooperation with the Freie Universität Berlin